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1. Hotel nakedness
If Clint had ever thought about what Phil Coulson slept in (which he definitely hadn't, no way, no how, obviously), he would have guess striped flannel pyjamas.
OK, maybe he wouldn't have picked something that conservative. Coulson had been known to wear patterned ties sometimes, after all. He'd even worn one covered with tiny little Captain America shields at the annual Christmas party, so striped flannel might have been overkill on the conservative sleepwear front.
But the point was, Clint would have picked out something dapper and a little old-fashioned--pyjamas. Real ones, the kind that came as a set. Probably plain and made from cotton. Or maybe subtly pattered, but still matching.
On the days when Coulson was all starry-eyed over his newest piece of Captain America merchandise, Clint usually put more than one set of Cap pyjamas into his mental wardrobe of Coulson sleepwear. His opinion on that varied, depending on what Coulson's latest treasure was and how many forms he'd made Clint fill out for lost equipment recently. Some days, when Clint had a particularly large stack of forms to work through, he decided that Coulson probably owned footie Cap pyjamas as well. The mental image always made him smile while he wrote out five reasons why he'd lost his comm headset. Again.
Very occasionally, Clint suspected Coulson might be slightly less formal in his nightwear choices. OK, admittedly, this was the man who wore a suit to storm a beach (a suit on a fucking beach--who did that, even for work?), but he couldn't be that buttoned up and formal all the time. Nobody could. On those rare days, Clint decided Coulson probably wore pyjama pants, or sweats with an old t-shirt. Maybe a soft, worn t-shirt that was so old it had tiny holes along the hem, and it stretched across his chest in way that...
And that was usually where Clint cut the thought off and put Coulson back in the striped flannel pyjamas.
Maybe, just maybe, Clint actually did spend a bit too much time thinking about what Coulson wore to bed.
Not that it meant anything. Clearly it didn't. He'd just always thought that what a person slept in was a good indicator of what that person was like as a...person.
(Sometimes his brain got all tangled up in thoughts and stopped making sense.)
Point was, Clint thought about this shit. He knew from experience that Natasha wore a t-shirt and boxers to bed, because it meant she was never unprepared if something happened in the middle of the night.
Clint wore boxers to bed, because even if he wasn't as paranoid as Natasha, he'd still had way too many surprise attempts on his life in the middle of the night to feel totally comfortable sleeping nude. Unless he had company, of course, and then there was a lot to be said for nakedness.
He never let himself think about the possibility of Fury sleeping, never mind contemplating what he wore to bed.
So maybe he'd thought about Coulson's sleepwear more than he'd thought about pretty much anyone else's after all. It wasn't a significant fact, obviously, because probably Coulson wore boring pyjamas that always looked freshly ironed, and Clint wasn't thinking about this. Not at all.
Right up until...
***
The latest mission had finished and their transport would be there in the morning to pick them up, so Coulson checked them both into a nice hotel for the night. Clint liked missions where it was just the two of them, because Coulson always got them rooms in a good hotel on SHIELD's dime. As they'd just spent three days hanging out in a drafty, damp, abandoned office, watching a target and waiting for a kill order that never came, Clint really appreciated the treat.
This time, Coulson got them a suite: two bedrooms (both with en suite bathrooms), a tiny living area, and a kitchenette. Lap of luxury kind of stuff after the last three days. He even stretched the SHIELD expense budget to a huge pizza order, and Clint went to bed that night feeling too stuffed to eat another bite.
The stuffed to the point of bursting feeling lasted until around three in the morning. Clint woke up with his stomach rumbling, and after fifteen minutes of trying to ignore it, he gave up. He'd worn a t-shirt and boxers to bed as usual, but he shuffled into a pair of jeans before he left the bedroom, just in case.
Just in case of what, he didn't know, but he found out a few minutes later.
Clint padded silently across the living area and opened the fridge, careful to make as little noise as possible so he could raid the leftovers in peace. Or at least, without Coulson's raised eyebrow and smug smile. Damn, he could be infuriating sometimes.
Clint was doing really well with the whole stealthy pizza plan, right up until he leaned back against the counter to take a huge pepperoni-tastic bite...and his elbow hit something.
Something made out of glass that rolled across the counter and landed in the (granite, who the fuck puts granite in a kitchen?) sink with a heart stopping, splintering crash. Clint froze with the slice of pizza an inch from his mouth. Maybe Coulson hadn't heard it.
Coulson's bedroom door slammed open and the man himself emerged, halting in the doorway with his gun aimed unerringly in Clint's direction. He was perfectly balanced, and there was an air of leashed power around him that did unexpected things to Clint's insides.
Coulson was also stark naked.
His hair was slightly mussed, which Clint had never seen before, and also, hey, naked.
Very, very naked.
Not even a sock on one foot.
Clint couldn't seem to stop looking. Actually, he couldn't seem to find a safe place to rest his eyes because there was a lot of nakedness, and muscle, and nakedness, and hey Coulson's dick, and naked.
Coulson warily lowered his gun...weapon...sidearm (Clint's brain seemed to be stuck in a very juvenile place right now--stupid brain) and tilted his head.
"What happened?" he asked.
Clint tried to remember how to make words happen. It took him a minute.
"Dropped a glass, I think," he said eventually. "Fucking granite sink. Who does that?"
"Drops glasses or installs granite sinks?"
Clint opened his mouth to answer, but Coulson chose that moment to straighten out of his attack stance completely, dropping the hand holding his gun to his side. The view sent Clint's brain off-line again.
Coulson yawned and scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it look even more tousled than before. Clint's brain went "Flrrbrt".
"I'm going to bed," Coulson said. "Try not to drop anything else."
The door had been closed behind him for nearly two minutes when Clint numbly said, "OK."
He took two pieces of pizza to bed with him as comforting snack and tried to pretend he was awake for the rest of the night due to pepperoni poisoning, and not due to naked Coulson shock.
2. Safe house nakedness
Clint decided that Coulson must have been sleeping...like that (naked, a traitorous voice in his head reminded him) because he had nothing else to wear. He clearly hadn't chosen to sleep like that (the voice in his head snickered) because men like Coulson didn't do that kind of thing. They wore pyjamas. Boring, carefully ironed pyjamas with matching tops and bottoms.
Sometimes they might--maybe, in hot weather--wear a t-shirt instead of long sleeves.
They definitely never slept...like that.
(The complicated mental hand-wave thing Clint kept having to do every time he stuttered over the 'N' word was giving him a headache.)
Clearly, Coulson had been forced by circumstance to do it because all the clothes he'd brought on the mission had been dirty or something. Clint's own clothing had smelled pretty rank after three days in a damp building and, god knew, Coulson was the kind of guy who was particular about his clothes. He probably hadn't wanted to track mildew and grungy ick all over the nice clean hotel sheets, so he'd done what was necessary.
Point was, Clint refused to believe that Coulson habitually slept...like that. Because the thought sent his brain off in all sorts of really uncomfortable directions, and he didn't need to be thinking those thoughts around his handler.
The weirdest part had been how calm Coulson was at the time. He didn't look embarrassed, and even though it had been too dark to really tell, Clint was sure there hadn't even been a hint of a blush. Coulson definitely hadn't turned red or done anything else to show that he was self-conscious about the whole naked-with-a-gun thing the next morning, either.
It was a really good thing the suite had been badly lit and Clint's t-shirt had been kind of long and baggy. That was all Clint was going to admit to about that night.
After several days, Clint managed to stop obsessing about what Coulson wore (or didn't wear, fuck his brain forever) to sleep in, and after a week he was able to meet Coulson's eyes again. It was a huge relief, because they were sent out on another mission a few days after that. This time, the mission involved a lot of hanging out in trees (Clint) and sitting in an SUV (Coulson), and culminated in a huge explosion.
An actual explosion, the kind that involved C4 and detonators, not a...
Clint shut down that entire train of thought before it could go any further.
After the flames subsided and they escaped in a stolen SUV, they retreated to a safe house to await extraction. They were both sooty and sweaty and Clint really didn't want to know what the green stain on his left boot was. It was probably something disgusting.
At least they were secure in the safe house. They barely paused long enough to grab some MREs before heading off to their separate bedrooms for some much needed shut-eye. Clint peeled out of the top layers of his disgustingly foul tactical suit, but he left his t-shirt and boxers on just in case. They were in the field, after all, and someone would be around later to clean up the bed, and the mess he was making on the sheets, before the safe house was used again.
He was vaguely aware, just as he was falling asleep, of the sound of a shower running, but Morpheus took hold and dragged him down before the thought could go anywhere.
***
Something woke Clint up. He lay completely still for a long moment, straining to hear what had disturbed him, and was rewarded with a soft crunching sound.
It sounded a lot like someone breaking a window downstairs.
He silently rolled out of bed and slid his feet into his boots, taking a critical second to tug the laces tight. Past experience had shown that unlaced boots were a bad idea.
He hadn't bothered to break down his bow before going to bed and his quiver was resting against the wall next to it. He nocked an arrow and held it on the rest with a finger as he slowly opened his door. Coulson's was already open, but there was no sign of him. Clint crept down the hallway and peered cautiously down the stairs, but all he could see in the moonlight was a square of empty floor at the bottom.
The third stair had a slight creak. Clint had noticed it on the way up earlier, so he carefully avoided it as he descended.
He got to the bottom step just as the intruders left the kitchen and entered the downstairs hallway. There were three of them; all dressed in black and heavily armed. One of them seemed to have a hastily patched and treated burn on his arm, and his sleeve had been cut away.
Clint raised his bow, drew, and released, all in one instinctive moment. The burned guy suddenly sprouted an arrow in his chest.
Before he could draw another arrow, naked fury descended on the intruders.
Naked in the literal sense. Again.
Clint didn't dare to shoot at anyone in case he hit Coulson, who didn't seem bothered that he was seriously underdressed, armed only with a handgun, and fighting two men in full Kevlar gear carrying a small armoury.
He had both men disarmed and on the floor in a few moments. Clint could only gape at him.
Gape in admiration for his badass combat skills, obviously, and not because of anything else. Definitely not because Phil Coulson was fucking beautiful when he was naked, and the whole nude combat thing had been the biggest turn-on of Clint's life.
Nope. Definitely not that.
Coulson was breathing hard, his chest gleaming in the moonlight, and Clint couldn't seem to look away.
"We should call this in," Coulson said, his voice sounding as calm and measured as ever.
Clint's brain helpfully went "Flrrbrt ", again instead of telling him how and who to call.
Coulson raised an eyebrow. Naked Coulson, eyebrow raising. Clint's brain flrrbrt-ed again.
"Are you awake yet?" Coulson asked. "Or did you shoot in your sleep?"
"I'm awake!" Clint said quickly. "I'm just...wait, what? Um."
"I'll call it in," Coulson said. "You watch them. Shoot them if they move."
Clint drew an arrow and nocked it, holding the string loosely and trying to look professional. "Yes, sir."
There was an odd look on Coulson's face, but it was gone before Clint could interpret it. Coulson prodded one of the intruders with a toe (bare toe, Clint's traitorous brain supplied) and seemed satisfied by the lack of response. He was limping slightly as he walked towards Clint, and it took all of Clint's considerable willpower not to express his concern at that. It probably wouldn't be appreciated at this particular moment.
Clint didn't have enough self-control not to look as Coulson hobbled up the stairs. Turned out, Coulson was naked all over (Clint mentally face-palmed as that thought hit him) and he had a really great ass.
3. Camping nakedness
Clint valiantly held onto his firm belief that Coulson only slept...like that (NAKED, his traitorous brain shouted) under extreme duress. Or at least, he tried to. After all, both of the times he'd seen it (oh, god, had he ever seen it...which was a terrible dick joke even by his standards), they'd been retreating from situations where clothing availability was not optimal.
He'd managed to work that phrase into the report on the safe house mess twice. And then he'd deleted the report completely and started again, leaving out all mention of clothing availability and levels of nakedness. Nobody actually needed to know about that, after all.
Anyway, the important part was that both occasions had happened in supposedly safe locations, while they were resting after missions that had left them smelly and disgusting. Both times, Coulson had probably decided not to mess up the sheets by contaminating them with his revolting clothes. At the safe house, he'd even showered before going to bed. That was what Clint had heard before he'd drifted to sleep.
Coulson had showered that night, and neither of them had been carrying a spare set of clothes when they high-tailed it out of the base. He probably hadn't wanted to put his sweaty, sooty, possibly biologically-contaminated clothes back on while his skin was still clean from the shower.
Freshly showered, naked Coulson.
Clint's brain tried to ”Flrrbrt" at that mental image, but thankfully he had a lot more control over it when nude Coulsons weren't standing right there in front of him.
The important part was that Clint was still valiantly holding onto his belief that, under normal conditions, Coulson was a striped flannel pyjamas kind of guy. Maybe plain cotton if he was trying to look fancy, but still the matching set type of pyjamas. And on really aggravating days, Clint put Captain America shields on the mental pyjama image. Nobody could find Captain America pyjamas sexy. Even in Clint's depraved cesspit of a mind--which now had a mental image of naked Coulson burned into it forever--there was nothing sexy about Cap pyjamas.
Maybe he was struggling a bit with his belief. Holding onto it with the tips of increasingly ragged fingernails, that kind of thing. He was holding on, though, because a buttoned up guy like Phil Coulson couldn't--shouldn't--be a commando sleeper.
***
It had been a few weeks since the safe house and Clint was starting to feel relaxed again. Their latest mission was a camping trip.
Yeah, a SHIELD-sponsored camping trip. They'd spent the last week hiking out in the wilderness, trying to look like two ordinary tourists taking in the countryside. It had been surprisingly relaxing. Two guys, two tents, and not an MRE in sight, because real tourists brought real food.
Thankfully, they were never more than a few hours from civilisation, so they could stop regularly in small towns and communities for their supplies of real food. If they'd been carrying all the cans and loaves of bread they'd eaten --not to mention the small cooler with bacon and beer in it-- they would have suffered serious shoulder damage from the weight of it all. They were real tourists, but not the wilderness survival crazy kind of tourists.
The good thing about their cover was that it gave them an excuse to have all sorts of weird gadgets and shit in their equipment. Citified tourists who couldn't live without bacon for breakfast were exactly the type to have cool toys with little flashy lights on them.
They were also the type of tourists who might carry a rifle and a small bow for a bit of hunting. SHIELD had even provided them with licenses, just in case anyone asked.
And if a few of their little toys with flashy lights got dropped along the way in strategically useful places, no one needed to know. Right?
On their last day, they hiked out a long way past the distance they would usually have stopped at, and spent the afternoon 'resting' on a ridge. Clint didn't need binoculars to count the trucks entering and leaving the compound below the ridge.
They left an hour before sunset and hiked until well after dark. When they were at a safe distance, in a meadow that was probably beautiful in the daylight, they made camp and retreated to their separate tents.
***
It was warm when Clint woke up. Actually, scratch that, it felt like he was lying in a sauna. He'd been up with the dawn most mornings, but they'd hiked a long way yesterday and it had been late when they stopped, so he'd slept later than normal. Late enough that the sun was now beating down on his tent and turning it into a heat trap. He'd kicked his sleeping bag aside in his sleep and was lying on top of it in just a t-shirt and boxers, and he was still too hot.
He was just thinking about unzipping the tent flap and sprawling out on the grass until he stopped feeling like he was melting, when he heard a growl.
A low, wild animal sort of growl.
Oh shit.
This was why he hated SHIELD-sponsored camping trips. Sure, the hiking and the open air and the chance to fuck up someone's plans were great, but then there was all that nature. All those big, natural animals, who saw him as a small, natural snack.
A small natural snack in a nice warm package.
Clint reached out and felt for his bow, which he'd carefully unstrung before he went to bed in case the moisture in the tent overnight affected the string.
Fuck.
His knife was under the pack he'd been using as a pillow, so he pulled that out instead. Another low growl sounded, closer this time. He froze for a moment before forcing his limbs to move despite the cold fear that tried to turn them into solid lead. It was ridiculous that he could face down a whole army of Hydra agents armed with a Palaeolithic stick-based weapon, and one wild animal (probably a bear, or maybe a coyote if he was lucky) could turn him into a terrified wreck.
Clint swallowed down his fear and carefully rolled to his knees. He eased the zipper of his tent flap down as slowly and quietly as he could and peered out.
His brain had a small "Flrrbrt" moment before he got everything back under control.
Coulson was standing outside, feet planted firmly on the thick, plush grass of their meadow. Clint had a perfect view of the sleek, muscular line of his back and the firm rounded shape of his ass. He could see the muscles in Coulson's thighs shift as he balanced in a perfect fighting stance and the subtle movement across Coulson's shoulders as he snugged the butt of his rifle into place.
Clint could see all of that because Coulson was facing down a bear, naked.
Coulson was naked.
The bear was as well, but that wasn't as unexpected.
Coulson had clearly been sleeping in a tent only a couple of feet from Clint's, completely clothing-free. The question of whether Coulson habitually slept naked had finally been answered. After all, Clint knew they both had spare clothes around this time, so Coulson's current state had nothing to do with a lack of clean clothes.
He might, possibly, have decided to strip down when his tent became stiflingly hot. That possibility was what Clint decided to cling to.
For his own sanity, he needed to believe that Coulson had been bundled up in real clothes until around thirty seconds before the bear turned up. If he could believe that, could believe that Coulson had only just stripped down before the bear arrived, then he wouldn't have to think about all the times Coulson had probably been naked in a room (or a tent) not far away.
Clint still hadn't entirely figured out why it was so important to believe this, but it was important.
OK, maybe he was lying to himself about why it was important. That wasn't the point right now.
The point, Clint reminded himself, was that right now Coulson was facing down a bear, and they were in the middle of the wilderness, and there was a bear.
A bear.
A bear.
Clint started to climb out of the tent, but the bear swung its huge head and he froze when it glared at him.
Right. OK. The bear didn't like him. This was the best camping trip ever.
Coulson glanced back and gave him a look that Clint interpreted as, "Stay there or the bear will eat you."
Clint decided to stay where he was, one foot out of the tent, and watch Coulson's ass. Nope, not ass. Bad thought. He'd watch the bear that clearly hated him and was plotting how to eat him.
The bear took one, heavy step forward, and Coulson made an unhappy clicking sound in the back of his throat just before he fired his rifle. The shot went over the bear's head, but it was enough to startle it. And, thankfully, to startle it in the other direction, away from the two tasty human snacks.
The bear lumbered away and was out of sight much faster than Clint would have given it credit for. Coulson lowered his rifle with a relieved sigh and turned to face Clint, who promptly tripped on something and fell out of his tent.
He landed on his back and stared up at the clear blue sky for a minute, until Coulson loomed over him with a concerned expression.
Oh, hello, new naked Coulson angle. Clint blinked.
"Are you alright?" Coulson asked.
Clint rolled over and sat up. It didn't really help with the naked Coulson thing, because now Coulson was standing not far away with his rifle held loosely at his side. Still not wearing a stitch of clothing. Still not blushing.
Clint suspected his face was pink. He wondered whether he could blame it on sunburn.
"Clint?" Coulson said. "Did you hit your head when you fell?"
"No," Clint said. "There was a bear."
"There was a bear," Coulson said agreeably. "Ready to go home?"
"Um," Clint said, while his brain quietly whispered, "Flrrbrt."
"I'll take that as a yes," Coulson said. "We should get dressed and head out. Our evac will be in place in around two hours."
"Right, evac," Clint said. "We should get dressed and put on actual clothes and shit."
Coulson tilted his head, looking worried. And also naked. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine," Clint said. "Absolutely fine. Never better. We survived a bear attack."
"It was more like a bear stare."
"We'll tell everyone there were three of them and we had to fight them off with our bare hands."
Coulson rubbed the bridge of his nose with a pained expression. "I refuse to sign off on any reports containing lies that blatant."
"Fine, fine, I'll make it two bears."
Clint really didn't watch Coulson walk away and crawl into his tent.
He really didn't...oh, fuck it, he totally watched and then needed a quiet moment in his own tent before it was safe to pull on and fasten his pants.
4. Napping nakedness
The annoying side to the whole mess was that Clint didn't have anyone he could talk to about it. Nobody to talk him down or point out that he was being an idiot about Coulson and his sleep attire--or lack thereof.
That wasn't strictly true. There was Natasha. If he asked her to, she'd listen carefully as he poured out the whole story and all of his confused feelings. She'd ply him with vodka and put on her sympathetic listening face, which was a lot like her manipulative interrogation face, but with actual sympathy in her eyes.
And when he'd finished telling her everything, she'd laugh at him for five minutes straight.
Then she'd call him half a dozen pet names in Russian--at least two of them foul and insulting--and laugh some more.
When she could finally speak through the laughter, she'd tell him that he was being an ass and then lay a dozen really uncomfortable truths on him while he was still vulnerable and half-drunk. It would be horrible and embarrassing...and she'd be right about all of it.
Natasha would tell him that being so disturbed by Coulson and his body was a sign of something much deeper.
She'd point out that Clint wasn't exactly picky when it came to the gender of his bed partners.
Just to make sure he understood, she'd tell him in short, simple sentences that he'd been thinking about Coulson for years.
She wouldn't use the 'L' word, because Natasha didn't believe in it, but she'd tell Clint about his feelings using every other word at her disposal.
Lust. Want. Desire. Happiness. Protectiveness. Friendship. Need.
It would be a terrifying speech because it would all be true, and that's why Clint couldn't talk to her. He didn't want to hear the speech, because it would mean dealing with all of the things he'd been bottling up for ages, and it was so much easier to just pretend he wasn't feeling anything. Or at least, it was easier when Coulson stayed neatly buttoned up and pressed in his suits, instead of standing around looking real and fuckable and wantable.
(Clint could make up words in his head if he damn well wanted to.)
Reluctantly admitting to himself that he felt something for Coulson wasn't the hardest part. It still took him over a week after the bear attack to let himself think it, but he did. Eventually. After realising he'd jerked off to mental images of Coulson for the fifth time in three days, and one of those times, Coulson had been fully-clothed.
There had been a couple of beers involved in the moment when, a week later, he'd said under his breath, "Oh, shit, what in fuck's name should I do?"
(Clint had never been very good with feelings and stuff, OK?)
Doing something about that admission was a whole different problem. And again, Clint couldn't talk to Natasha about it, due to the previously mentioned hysterical laughter and insults in Russian.
At least it meant that he couldn't blame or even suspect her for what happened next.
***
An envelope was sitting on Clint's desk when he got back from an afternoon at the range. It contained a note in Natasha's familiar scrawl, and he managed to decipher that she'd been called away and needed someone to water Coulson's plants for her. Coulson's absence over the last week had been more unsettling than Clint wanted to admit. The purple star marking Coulson's return date in his calendar had been completely coincidental, obviously; he just didn't want to forget about National Sugar Cookie Day.
Natasha had included a key with the note, and Clint didn't think twice about pocketing it as he left.
He'd been to Coulson's apartment a few times, usually to bring files over when Coulson was supposed to be on medical leave, or to help Natasha to water plants. Clint's thoughts weren't on what he was doing as he unlocked and opened the door. For once, his thoughts weren't on Coulson at all: he was trying to decide whether he wanted Chinese or pizza after he finished his plant watering duties.
So he was relaxed and unprepared for someone to grab his arm as he pushed the door closed. He tried to react anyway, but his assailant was too fast: Clint was already in the air, probably thrown over someone's shoulder, and landing on his back with the wind knocked out of him. His flailing hand briefly touched skin while he flew, but there wasn't been anything he could grab onto.
Just to complete his embarrassment, he tried to flip straight up as soon as his shoulders hit the floor, but his attacker was expecting the move. Somehow, the guy got the jump on him again and kicked his legs away, using the momentum Clint had almost achieved to roll him over onto his stomach. Clint's shoulder burned as one arm was yanked up behind him, and he felt a heavy weight settle across his hips.
A dozen possibilities raced through Clint's mind for who would be waiting in ambush in Coulson's apartment. Hydra? AIM? Somebody from one of the many international gangs Coulson had taken down over the years?
"Barton?" a voice said incredulously.
Or it could be the other option: Coulson himself.
Clint wished he'd been taken down on a nice, thick carpet, so he could suffocate himself in it. The pressure on his arm abruptly slackened off, allowing him to lift his head and turn to look behind him.
He met Coulson's eyes, and forced his gaze to stay on Coulson's face. He could see bare shoulders at the edge of his vision and Clint knew, he just knew, that Coulson was naked. Again.
OK, naked except for a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses that were slightly askew on his face. Coulson's hair was sticking up on one side as well, as though he'd been lying down somewhere until Clint barged in.
"Uh, hi?" Clint said.
"Why are you in my apartment?" Coulson asked.
"Why did you attack me?" Clint tried to ask. Except it came out as, "Why are you naked again?"
A slight hint of colour spread across Coulson's face, but his eyes stayed cool and calm. "Why shouldn't I be? I was sleeping."
"At five in the afternoon?"
"It was a long flight and I needed a nap."
Clint frowned. "Why aren't you still in wherever you were that I'm not cleared to know about?"
"The mission ended early. That still doesn't tell me why you're in my apartment."
"Do you wake up ready to attack everything that moves?"
"Only the things I'm not expecting," Coulson said, his tone dry despite the flush creeping down his neck. "Such as people creeping into my apartment."
"Natasha told me to water your plants." Clint dropped his eyes for a moment--yup, naked Coulson straddling his hips--and quickly closed them. "Can you let me up now before my neck seizes up?"
There was a moment's pause before Clint felt Coulson stand and move away. He rolled over and sat up, waiting a polite three seconds before opening his eyes. Coulson had used the short break to grab a shirt and wrap it around his waist. It just about managed to cover the crucial parts, although there was a lot more chest on display than Clint was comfortable with.
No, wait, Clint wasn't uncomfortable about all the Coulson skin on display. He was getting way too comfortable with it, and that was the problem.
Clint realised, about five seconds too late, that he'd been staring for too long. He slowly raised his eyes to Coulson's face, and his brain did its "Flrrbrt" thing at the raised eyebrow.
"Can I help you with something?" Coulson asked, sounding kind and slightly amused.
There were so many responses to that on the tip of Clint's tongue, most of them related to his feelings about Coulson's nakedness, and he had to swallow three times before he trusted himself not to say any of them.
"I guess I'll just be going," he said, standing up. "Looks like you can probably handle the plant watering on your own. I'll just...leave."
Now that he was standing, Clint could see a pair of pants draped over a nearby chair and two socks halfway under the sofa. There was a dent in the sofa cushions and a wrinkled blanket thrown over the arm, as if a body had been lying there, fast asleep, only a few minutes ago. The mental image of Coulson, naked, sprawled on his sofa with his hair mussed and those glasses crooked for reasons unrelated to napping, made heat curl in Clint's belly. His mouth felt dry and his breath caught in his chest.
He pulled his gaze away from the sofa, but his eyes fell on Coulson instead.
Coulson, who was watching him with a softly puzzled expression. Coulson, who had a thin shirt wrapped tight around his hips that didn't hide as much as he clearly though it did.
Clint swallowed again and absently licked his lips, unable to stop looking at the bulge under Coulson's shirt that was growing more pronounced as he watched.
The air in the apartment seemed to be getting sticky and heavy, too thick to breathe comfortably, and Clint fought to pull in a lungful. Coulson's chest rose and fell at the same time, muscles twitching across his abdomen. Clint's fingers itched to touch, and he clenched his fists so he wouldn't give in.
He dragged his eyes back to Coulson's face, where a deep flush now stood out on his skin. Coulson's eyes, though, held a strange mix of defiance and hope, and it was that expression that made Clint pause. If Coulson was looking at him like that, all heat and hope with a touch of nervous pride, then maybe the tension making the air so difficult to breathe wasn't all Clint's.
And maybe if they were both feeling it, that meant it was OK to say something; to make a cautious offer and find out whether he stood a chance.
"Do you want to, maybe..?" Clint trailed off and swallowed, trying to make the words form on his slow, clumsy tongue. "Would you like to get dinner sometime?"
The long pause after he spoke was almost enough to make Clint run, but he held his ground.
Coulson blinked. A slow smile curved his lips. He chuckled, low and rumbly at first, before it turned into a real laugh.
"You...you..." Coulson said, sounding torn between incredulity and just dissolving into giggles. "I'm standing here, like this, and you...ask me to dinner?"
Clint shrugged uncertainly. "Well, yeah. It kinda felt creepy to say 'hey, you're naked already, wanna do something about that?' I figured asking a guy out to dinner first is probably the right thing to do."
Coulson smiled broadly. "I would love to go out for dinner. Let me put some clothes on and we can get to that right now."
"Right now? As in, now?"
"Unless you have other plans," Coulson said. "I could take a rain check until tomorrow."
"Nope, no other plans."
"I'll put some clothes on, then."
It was on the tip of Clint's tongue to tell him not to, and offer to buy takeout instead, but Coulson was a classy, buttoned up kind of guy. The sort of man who wore good suits when he wasn't sleeping.
They could negotiate the bounds of adding a clothing optional aspect to their relationship over dinner.
(Clint winced and kicked himself as soon as he realised he was thinking in management speak.)
5. Mutual naked sleeping with mutual enjoyment of nakedness before and/or after: an ode by Clint Barton
It turned out that, usually, Phil Coulson was the kind of guy who wore sweats and a t-shirt to sleep in when he was in the field. Clint learned that fact about three weeks after he'd personally begun experiencing Phil's preference for a pyjama-less existence when he was sleeping at home.
The outfit wasn't as classy as Clint had always expected, but it did mean Phil wasn't buck naked when intruders tried to ambush them in a safe house. Again.
Phil confessed, after the attackers were hauled away, that the hotel and the previous safe house invasion had been exactly as Clint had originally suspected: a lack of sleepwear due to extreme circumstances.
When Clint asked, a couple of days later, about the camping trip, Phil demonstrated that he was an occasional full-body blusher. "I'd noticed that you were...looking...and I'd been planning to try an experiment," he said. "I didn't expect the bear attack, I'll admit."
"Nobody expects the bear attack," Clint reassured him. "They're like the Spanish Inquisition."
"But with bigger teeth."
"I did appreciate the visuals when the bear wasn't trying to eat me anymore," Clint said. "It would have been a really successful experiment if there hadn't been a bear attack."
"You're just saying that."
"Nope, definitely not. Here, let me demonstrate."
***
Warm morning sun was pouring in through the bedroom windows when Clint woke up. He lay still for a while, eyes closed, too content to move and break the moment. The sheets were soft against his skin and there was a warm body pressed against his side, soft chest hair tickling his arm with every breath Phil took.
There were a lot of really awesome bonuses to sleeping with a guy who rejected the concept of pyjamas in his own home.
Clint slowly opened his eyes. The angle of the sun told him it was late, but due to flight delays they'd only gotten home just before dawn, and a lazy Saturday in bed sounded like a fantastic idea right now. A broad smile slowly pulled at his lips as he remembered that they'd been given three days leave. They could potentially spend an entire weekend in bed.
Hell, they might not even need to put on any clothes until Tuesday, if they were lucky.
The smile dimmed slightly when Clint finished a mental catalogue of the cupboards and freezer and came up mostly empty. One of them would have to wear pants to fetch takeout from the front door and bring it to bed later.
But three days mostly in bed with a naked and relaxed Phil was still a tempting thought.
A slight change in Phil's breathing alerted Clint that he was starting to wake up. Phil always seemed to gravitate to sleeping pressed against Clint's side, no matter what position they started the night in, and he'd thrown an arm across Clint's stomach as well this time. It was a comforting weight and Clint sighed when Phil's fingers twitched and brushed his hip.
Clint lifted his free hand and slowly swept it down the smooth line of Phil's shoulder, side, and hip. The skin was cool from exposure to the air in the bedroom, but it was much warmer when Clint slipped his hand under the covers to palm Phil's ass.
Phil's fingers tightened over Clint's hip, just enough to let Clint know that he wasn't asleep anymore.
"Are you feeling me up already?" he mumbled, pressing a kiss to Clint's shoulder.
Clint hummed agreeably. "It's a fine ass, and it was right there under my hand."
"I'm not sure I should be encouraging such blatant lies," Phil said, already sounding more alert. "You had to move your hand to touch my ass; it wasn't already there."
"Are you complaining?"
"That depends," Phil said.
"On what?"
Phil lifted his head and sucked a kiss onto the skin where Clint's shoulder and neck met, nipping it lightly before soothing it again with his tongue. Clint's breath hitched and his heart sped up.
"Right, that," Clint said, feeling more breathless than one biting kiss should have made him. "OK, you win. What were we almost going to argue about?"
The look Phil gave him could only be described as a smirk, but Clint didn't care because he was being kissed before the expression could register fully. Phil's touch was gentle at first, feather light caresses at the corners of his mouth that made Clint want more. He parted his lips with a sigh and Phil licked inside, the soft kiss turning into something hotter and more insistent the moment their tongues touched.
Clint's hand tightened convulsively on the firm flesh under it, and Phil made a low, needy sound in his throat. It was a good sound, the kind that went straight to Clint's dick and sent heat radiating out through his belly. He'd never believed that Phil would make such great sex noises, and Clint was glad that he hadn't tried to imagine them before he actually heard them.
He wasn't sure they would have made it to dinner the first time if he'd had any idea what sex with Phil Coulson would be like.
The kiss deepened into a slow, thorough exploration of tongues and teeth. Phil threw his leg over Clint's thigh, pressing closer so that Clint could feel the hard length of him pressing against his hip. It still took Clint's breath away that Phil wanted him and was so enthusiastic about everything they did together.
Clint would cheerfully admit to anyone who asked (not that anyone had yet) that they did sex together really, really well.
He smiled when Phil released his mouth to press wet kisses against his throat. They were both breathing fast now, and Phil's hips had begun making tiny movements against his; just enough to let Clint know that he was trying to hold back and not entirely succeeding. Clint wanted friction as well, something to grind against, but all he had was the insubstantial touch of the sheets above him.
"Are you awake now?" he asked, knowing perfectly well what the response would be.
Phil's teeth grazed his skin, and Clint gasped.
"Obnoxious brat," Phil said, in a tone that was probably supposed to sound grumpy but was much too fond for it. "Why do I put up with you?"
Clint tightened his arm around Phil's waist and used his strength to flip them both over. Phil ended up sprawled on his back with Clint between his legs.
"Because I can do that," Clint said smugly.
Phil lifted an eyebrow. Apparently he'd learned that the nakedness and eyebrow lifting combination did really amazing things to Clint.
"And now that we're here, what did you have in mind?" Phil asked.
"You're conveniently naked already," Clint said, "which is awesome, by the way, never stop doing that."
"I'll try."
"I know you will." Clint kissed Phil, hard and fast, and reared back before Phil could reel him in for more. "I figured I'd start down here, see where we end up."
He slithered down Phil's body, taking the sheets with him, until he was kneeling between Phil's ankles. It gave him a perfect view that he was never going to get tired of; not if he saw it every day for the rest of his life.
The problem with all those times he'd accidentally seen Phil without clothes was that he'd never been able to look properly. He'd noted the musculature, the chest hair he'd wanted to bury his fingers in, even the size and shape of his cock, but he hadn't been able to take in details. All the small flaws and blemishes that made Phil who he was had gone completely unobserved.
Clint kissed the thin scar just below Phil's right knee, and the skin twitched under his lips. It was an old scar that had faded, so only someone this close could see and appreciate it.
Another scar puckered the skin halfway up Phil's left thigh, and Clint kissed and licked it until Phil sighed and shivered.
Mapping the scars and marks with his tongue and teeth was Clint's favourite way of learning Phil's body. He found a mole he'd missed the last time just at the crease of Phil's leg, and he couldn't resist lavishing it with more attention than anything else he'd found. Phil groaned, low and rough, and Clint blew across the damp skin just to hear Phil gasp.
"Are you ever going to get tired of trying to kill me?" Phil asked, his voice sounding much deeper than it usually did.
Clint rested his chin on Phil's hipbone, ignoring the hard cock just beside his ear. "Nope."
"One day, you'll regret saying that."
"Never," Clint said, waggling his eyebrows as ridiculously as he could. "I mean, dying from good sex? That's a good way to go and a testament to my skills. Can't feel bad about that."
"You won't say that when you have to fill out the paperwork for doing it."
Clint snorted and kissed Phil's hip, which elicited a loud, impatient sigh from the pillow end of the bed. He thought about drawing things out more, maybe by dedicating some time to kissing every freckle he could find, but then he glanced at Phil's cock and the idea got a lot less appealing.
Licking a stripe up Phil's cock and wrapping his lips around the head was a much better idea.
Phil made a choked groaning sound and Clint smiled around the thick length in his mouth. It was intoxicating to have this, to see Phil barely clinging to his control, and know that it was something he'd caused. Clint sucked and licked, using his hands where his lips couldn't reach, and was rewarded with all the amazing sex sounds he'd become addicted to.
His own need was a hot ache, and he tried to shift so that he could rub against the sheets for some relief. A flailing hand brushed against his hair. Clint reached up to take it, to hold on and press it against the mattress, but Phil didn't let him. Phil's intention became clear a moment later when he curled up off the bed and reached down to grab Clint's arms and pull him up.
Clint let him, releasing Phil's cock with a wet, filthy sound and crawling up the bed to bracket Phil's head with his hands and lean over him. Phil bent his knees and wrapped one leg around Clint's thigh.
"What do you want?" Clint said.
Phil turned his head and kissed Clint's arm. His eyes were dark and serious when he met Clint's and said, "You."
"Fuck," Clint breathed.
He lowered himself carefully, and Phil tugged him down less carefully, until he was lying cradled between Phil's legs. Then Phil rolled his hips up and Clint groaned as his cock finally got the friction he'd been seeking. It was impossible to resist the urge to grind down, to feel Phil hard and ready against him, and every plan to go slow and make it last was swept aside by a wave of need. Clint tried to kiss him, but they were moving against each other too frantically, and all they could do was breathe the same air with their lips barely touching.
Heat built in Clint's belly, spread across his thighs, until he felt like he'd burn up from it. Phil shuddered and groaned when he came, and the sound and feel of it pushed Clint over the edge to join him.
***
Clint couldn't move. All his muscles had turned to jelly and he couldn't even lift his head from the comfortable hollow by Phil's neck. Phil's hand swept slowly up and down his back, sending delicious fizzles of sensation across his skin even though he was too wrung out to do anything about them.
"That was a good place to start," Phil said eventually.
Clint tried to say something witty, but all he could manage was a contented groan.
"We should get cleaned up," Phil said after another long period of mutual basking.
Clint managed to lift his head this time to fix Phil with a pathetic frown. "Or we could nap?"
Phil's smile was sleepy and smug. "Or we could do that."
After another couple of minutes, Clint managed to find the energy to slide partially onto the bed so Phil didn't suffocate while they slept. Clint considered asking for Phil's opinion on naked lunches in the kitchen--he already knew Phil's opinion on naked breakfast in bed, which was an enthusiastic approval of the concept--but sleep dragged him down before he could finish the thought.